If you stick around as long as Gregg Popovich, the place will look a lot different than when you came in.
The legendary San Antonio Spurs coach, who stepped aside this week to join the team’s front office after health challenges last season, is a pioneer in many ways. Popovich built a dynasty by developing new player archetypes, instilling a team-first mentality in his rosters, and building bridges with foreign-born basketball players. His reward was a championship ring for each hand.
Popovich also pioneered the role of a coach as a spokesperson for a team and a league. Despite his curmudgeonly affect and defensive shell, the Spurs lifer found new ways to use his voice.
When Popovich entered the league, coaches were gurus or grumps. Often both. But while Popovich, an Air Force veteran, would still happily embrace that persona when someone asked a boneheaded question in a pregame press conference, he slowly learned how to use the megaphone offered to a legendary sports figure. By the back half of his career, Popovich became as big a headline-maker as anyone in the NBA.
The Spurs never cared much for national TV games. Their stubborn commitment to load management led to severe fines and punishments that persist today as the league struggles to manage its overstuffed regular season. But that is just indifference. Popovich showed outright disdain for one particular component of national TV games: the in-game interview.
If a sideline reporter on ESPN or TNT offered a question that Popovich felt irrelevant or bothersome, the obstinate Devil on his shoulder suddenly showed up. Over time, Popovich evolved from one-word answers to combative comebacks. In 2014, he was so blunt and rude to ESPN’s Doris Burke that Burke later said she was “blinking back tears” trying to get her head back in the game on the broadcast.
Popovich was surely not the first coach to revile reporters. But if the most prominent coach in the sport can mock national broadcast partners, it’s fair game for anyone in the NBA to do the same.
Contrast that with Popovich’s longtime friendship with TNT’s Craig Sager. During Sager’s battle with leukemia, Popovich did everything he could to make Sager feel special and appreciated when he was healthy enough to work. While peculiar compared with how he would treat local beat reporters in those pregame pressers or the likes of Burke in other games, Popovich endeared himself to the media and fans by embracing Sager.
It’s worth homing in on the experience of watching Popovich go to work pregame. There’s nothing like it in sports. An hour and a half or so before a Spurs tipoff, a blanket of nervousness floats into the room with Popovich. Looks can’t kill, but Popovich’s in those rooms could at least induce a panic attack. Utter one stray word or misquote a fact, and you’re toast. Popovich will let you know.
Once in Phoenix, a Suns reporter asked Popovich about coaching Kevin Durant and Devin Booker with the 2021 Olympic team. The reporter referenced LeBron James in passing as part of the question. Within a millisecond of the reporter’s final word, Popovich jumped in to correct. He did not coach James with Team USA.
The reporter flushed, clarified the timeline and reiterated his question.
As if nothing ever happened, Popovich gave as eloquent an answer about Durant and Booker as anyone could give. If this sounds disorienting and exhausting, it was. The end game was never clear. This was just the experience of covering Coach Pop.
Of course, anyone who ever worked with or played for Popovich reveres the man. To many, he is a mentor and a father figure. A life-size recreation of his coaching tree could never stand. But in front of a mic, he was a relentless antagonist.
Around the time of Sager’s unfortunate passing, Popovich spread his wings. As social justice protests broke out across the U.S. and the specter of Donald Trump revolutionized the country’s politics, Popovich adapted. Rather than punching down to the writers who cover him, he began punching up toward Trump and the Republican party.
The Popovich-Kerr ’20 shirts were cringeworthy, but they at least got the hierarchy of that hypothetical ticket correct. Without Popovich, there are no monologues from Kerr about gun violence. Without crediting him for others’ courage and commentary, it is fair, at least, to say Popovich used his influence within the NBA to crack the door open for others to speak their minds.
Perhaps Popovich took a page from Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf or B.J. Armstrong to feel comfortable taking on the president from the relatively small pulpit of a basketball coach. Today, it’s commonplace. Athletes like LeBron James and, yes, even more conservative stars like Bryson DeChambeau benefit from the space Popovich helped make for political speech in sports.
Still, it takes a special blend of success and facility to speak out like Popovich has and be praised for it. NBA coaches are changing, too. The league’s tacticians are trending younger and more player-first. Popovich’s replacement, Mitch Johnson, fits the mold. They aren’t the faces of the league or its teams as often as they used to be.
So maybe there will be no “next Popovich.” On the court, it will be hard for any coach to match his achievements. For better and worse, it will be nearly as hard for anyone to match Popovich’s role as a voice and representative of the NBA.